Resurrection of Lazarus. Lazarus Saturday

In Israel there is a cave and a place of worship where Lazarus, a four-day dead man, was buried. Pilgrims coming to Jerusalem have the opportunity to see this cave. From the traditions of our Holy Church, we know that after his resurrection, he became a priest and not only a priest, but a bishop, and for seventeen years preached the Gospel on the island of Cyprus. Until now, in the city of Larnaca there is a temple of the Holy Righteous Lazarus, there is his tomb, where the holy head of the righteous Lazarus rests, to which all pilgrims and pilgrims can venerate. She is placed in a golden ark. On this tomb there is an inscription: “Lazarus of four days is a friend of God.” For all of us this truth of immortality human soul is the cornerstone, the anchor that keeps us here in this stormy world, the anchor of hope, the anchor of our hope with you that our life is not a meaningless journey and sailing with a meaningless end. And we have a way to a quiet harbor - the holy fathers told us about this: "God did not promise us a comfortable voyage, but he promised everyone a quiet harbor."

This quiet harbor is that eternity that can really begin and should begin already here, because only faith in the immortality of the soul gives a person the opportunity to look at illnesses, sorrows, trials, and suffering in a completely different way, in a different way. And, on the contrary, it gives a person the opportunity at some point in his life not to feel sorry for himself for the sake of God, for the sake of the church and for the sake of his neighbor. Such a person knows that pity yourself - do not pity, life will end with two meters anyway, but it is better that it ends for the sake of God and in the name of God. And only the belief that life does not end, but will continue, that there is eternity, inspires a person to such a life. Moreover, a person who is here by faith, spirit and the Gospel, about such a person Christ said: “Believe in Me, you will never see death. Eat my Flesh and drink my Blood abides in Me, and I in him." But today we heard a very important apostolic message in its content, the thirteenth chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews: "Let brotherly love abide among you." This is the end of the post. Today is considered the end of the fast, because today, if there is such an opportunity, fish is eaten, caviar is eaten, tomorrow - fish. As if with this, the Forty Day ends and Holy Week joins it.

It would seem that at the end of the post there is no talk of repentance, or tears, or anything else, but brotherly love is put in the first place, because this is the very essence of our relationship with you. Christian life- brotherhood. And it is very strange that nowhere in Holy Scripture and in our Christian environment, in everyday Christian life, is there such a combination of sisterly love, but only brotherly love. We need to think about this - it is very strange why there is no such combination. Either this love does not exist, or such words are not enough in our everyday life, but for some reason all the time there is only brotherly love. Let's think about it and somehow bring sisterly love into our lives. This is extremely important and necessary in our life. “Do not forget hospitality, for through it some, without knowing it, have shown hospitality to angels.” Who are these few who have shown hospitality to the angels? This is Abraham and Sarah, who met three travelers, but it turned out that these were three angels whom they helped.

Therefore, we must perceive any person who is on our way as a person who was not accidentally sent to us by God, because there is such a Russian proverb “Do not renounce money and prison.” Today you are a prince, and tomorrow you are dirt. Therefore, if a person finds himself in some position, where our complicity is important, then we need to think about the fact that God forbid we find ourselves in such a position. Therefore, if you have the strength, opportunity and means, then you help this person who is next to you, because "do not forget the hospitality of the angels, because through it some, not knowing, showed hospitality to the angels," because everything that we do to our neighbors, God takes it personally.

“Remember the prisoners, as if you were in bondage with them, and the afflicted, just as you yourself are in the body. Let marriage be honorable for all and the bed undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers will be judged by God. Have a disposition that is not greedy, being content with what you have.” The Apostle Paul in another epistle says: “It is a great gain to be godly and content with everything,” because a poor person is not one who has little, but one who does not know how to be content with what is necessary. And a rich man is not one who has a lot, but a rich man is one who knows how to be content with what is necessary, because for one a million is not enough, and for another a thousand is too much.

“Have a disposition that is not greedy, content with what you have, for He himself said: I will not leave you and will not leave you.” So we boldly say: "The Lord is my helper, and I will not be afraid of what a man will do to me." “Remember your leaders who preached to you the word of God, and, looking at the end of their lives, imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

Once, the Monk Seraphim of Sarov, the great saint of God, was asked: “Father, tell us why there are no such ascetics of faith and piety among Christians in the world today who were in the past, who raised the dead, who humbled themselves to the ground, who performed feats and labors self-denial for God's sake?" Then Reverend Seraphim Sarovsky said: “There is only one reason - a person does not have the determination to live entirely according to the Gospel commandments, because Christ is the same yesterday and today, and forever, ready to help, ready to console, ready to inspire, ready to take nine steps for us, if only we only one step was taken towards Him and our neighbor.”

He will take nine steps for us, taking us into His hands. There is a lack of determination, which is why there is so little spiritual joy in our lives. The Lord told us through the Apostle Paul: “He who sows sparingly, will reap sparingly. He who sows bountifully will reap bountifully. He who sows to his own flesh will reap corruption from the flesh; he who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit.” Therefore, prayer, the Gospel, holy fathers, good deeds, fasting are all sowing into the spirit. The one who does this with joy, not sparing himself, will reap spiritual joy, because if we were at fasting services, we heard such words from the Psalter of the psalmist David: those who sow with tears will reap with joy. Those who sow with tears will reap the harvest of eternal life.

Help us all, merciful Lord, in these holy and Passion days set before us all, to suffer a little together with Christ, to cry a little about our sins, imperfections, to try to be able to pray that the Lord would reveal His will to us, as we can and should serve our neighbors. Do not forget brotherly love, because fasting and prayers are, so to speak, a personally useful thing, and we always, waking up in the morning, should think about what we can do such a so-called socially useful thing. For myself personally, it is clear that no one will ever forget himself, but what else can I do for those people and for the church that is next to me?

And may the Lord give us faith in immortality, faith in the resurrection, faith that each of us is destined for a quiet rest, if only we would remain faithful to the commandments of the Lord, faithful to Him, Christ our God, Who said: “By this everyone will know that you are My disciples if you have love for one another.” Amen.

hegumen Melchizedek

“Having made the soulful fortecost, we ask you to see the holy week of your passion, Lover of mankind!”

For forty days in a row the Holy Church has led us by the path of prayer and abstinence to the sacred days of Passion Week, and then Paschal Week, in order to now raise us to the high mountain of theology, where, worshiping the Triune God of love and leaning to the sources of divine wisdom, we could, in the measure of our spiritual strength, to partake of the beginnings of the endless joy of the future age.

And here we are at the foot of this mental mountain! Not at that ancient Mount Sinai, which the sons of Israel were forbidden to even touch under fear of imminent death, but at the holy Mount of God, to which the voice of the great prophet of God, Jeremiah, invites to climb: “ Arise, and let us go up to Zion to the Lord our God" ().

This mountain, like the ancient Sinai, is, as it were, shrouded in a haze of clouds that cover the area of ​​saving mystery from our eyes, and on its top the fiery lightnings of divine illuminations shine. But these clouds are already ready to dissipate as we ascend, in order to make it possible to approach the temple of the glory of God not made by hands. And these lightnings will not scorch us with their sacred fire, but will only illuminate the greatest shrine of the god-human feat of the cross, so that, reverently bowing to her, we can unhindered, with a feeling of deepest gratitude, contemplate the beauty of the Lord (), which was revealed in the events of the Zion chamber and Golgotha.

On the eve of these salvific events, the Church recalls the miraculous resurrection of Christ's friend Lazarus of four days and reveals the very essence of what we have to remember and re-experience and re-feel during the days of the great Passion Week and the bright feast of Pascha. She tells us about the greatest VICTORY of the One Who is “all the joy, truth, light, life of the world and resurrection”, - about the VICTORY over the most terrible and most powerful enemies of man and mankind: over the forces of evil (), sin and death ().

Joyful is the victory over a fierce and ruthless enemy, won at the cost of great self-sacrifice and heroism. With love and jubilation, the people meet their courageous warriors - winners who defended their Fatherland with their breasts, and their names will long live in the grateful memory of their descendants. But this joy is inseparable from the sadness that no one and nothing is already able to return to earthly life those who fell on the battlefield - dearly loved and immensely dear to my heart sons, husbands, brothers and fathers.

And ordinary death loved one brings with it a hard-to-quench sadness, a great, sometimes inescapable, grief! “I cry and sob, when I think of death, and I see in the tombs our beauty, created in the image of God, lying in the image of God, ugly, inglorious, having no form ...”

And so we find out, and not just learn, but also receive a firm assurance that at the cost of redemptive suffering and the feat of the Cross of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, a complete victory has been gained for us over this most fierce and cruel enemy of the entire human race.

With His powerful word, the Lord resurrects a four-day dead man, rescues His friend from the embrace of death. “Who saw, who heard,” exclaims, speaking of this miracle, St. Andrew of Crete, - so that the deceased, whose body has undergone decomposition, will be resurrected!? The dead were also raised by the prophets, Elijah and Elisha, but they did not raise the dead from the tomb and not on the fourth day ”(Canon on the heel of the vay, p. 4, tr. 6).

Of course, a person who is unable to see in the gospel narrative more than a simple legend can say: what has changed in this world after the rise of Christianity? People are still dying, and none of the dead have come back! We know that even the ancient sage expressed the thoughts of people who have no hope for future life: « our life is short and regrettable, and there is no salvation for man from death... by chance we were born and after that we will be like never-before... our life... will dissipate like fog dispersed by the rays of the sun» ().

In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the sad truth is proclaimed to us that people who are devoted exclusively to earthly interests lose the ability to believe not only the innermost secrets, but also what would happen right before their eyes, with all obviousness. " If someone rose from the dead- says Patriarch Abraham about such, - they won't believe" ().

A Christian looks at things quite differently, for whom the word of God is alive and active (). He knows that God is not a man to lie to Him (), and that everything He said will come true in due time. He firmly believes that the coming into the world of the incarnated Only-Begotten Son of God brought about a fundamental change in the life and destinies of mankind. And if death, which entered the world through the sin of the first people, reigned over everything without exception to mankind, then the Lord Insus Christ, by the power of His divine omnipotence and the moral greatness of His redemptive feat, deprived the one who had the power of death, that is, the devil (), delivered us from the inevitable slavery to sin and, having bestowed the necessary grace-filled forces for deep spiritual renewal, he opened us reliable access to salvation and eternal life.

The immediate goal of the resurrection of Lazarus was to strengthen the faith of Christ's disciples that the Son of Man must not only suffer a lot and be humiliated (), but also truly rise from the dead on the third day (). He Who could resurrect a four-day dead man could not Himself become the powerless prey of death! This consciousness alone did not allow the disciples, during hours of terrible perplexity, to completely lose all the energy of their faith. Their faith, tested in the crucible of grave temptations, truly turned out to be more precious than gold that perishes, although it is tested by fire () and made them worthy to become witnesses and heralds of the greatest event of the Resurrection of Christ.

The Resurrection of Christ is the surest guarantee and the most reliable guarantee of our future resurrection. » Christ is risen from the dead, the Firstborn of the dead... As all die, so in Christ all shall be made alive" (). All those who really will be "Christ's", will follow Christ, will be faithful to Him in life and death!... And they will come to life not in order to return again to the conditions of earthly life with its limited interests, fragile joys, with its illnesses and sorrows, but in order to unite forever with Christ, with all His saints and with those close loved ones with whom bodily death separates us for a while.

However, the word of God warns us that the general bodily resurrection will be of two kinds. When "all who are in the tombs hear the voice of the Son of God," then " those who have done good will go out to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment»(). This means that it is possible to rise bodily not only for eternal blissful life, but also for eternal death, for that devastated and joyless eternal being, which in Holy Scripture, in contrast to " have a better resurrection"() the righteous, is called eternal death (), spiritual or " second death» ().

The VICTORY over death, won by the Lord Jesus Christ, consists not only in the fact that the bodily resurrection of all the dead will someday take place by the action of the omnipotence of God, “ righteous and unrighteous”(), but also in the fact that, in the presence of good will, every believer in the Only Begotten Son of God, with the assistance of divine grace, through the feat of spiritual and moral life, received the full opportunity to get rid of eternal spiritual death, which is the inevitable lot of unrepentant and hardened sinners.

It is revealed to us that both life in Christ and spiritual death will be fully revealed in the next century after the great judgment day, on which everyone will receive, according to what he did while living in the body, good or bad (). But they start right here on earth. " Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap: He who sows to his own flesh from the flesh will reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit from the Spirit will reap eternal life»(). “The life of sinners,” says St. Ephraim the Syrian, - there is death, because they languish in corruption and death, living in order to die for eternal torment. On the contrary, “he who has acquired a higher way of thinking is still here looking forward to the Kingdom of Heaven, begins to live a blissful life, waiting for himself the bliss prepared for those who love God.”

Here, on earth, it is also possible for a person to pass from spiritual death to life in Christ, who is the seer of St. the apostle and evangelist John the Theologian calls in his Revelation " first Sunday»(). Revealing this joyful truth for us, St. Macarius of Egypt says: "The resurrection of mortified souls is still happening today, but the resurrection of bodies will be at the end of the age."

And so, beloved, today, in the event of the resurrection of Lazarus on the four days, the Holy Church shows us a prototype of our future resurrection. “Common resurrection, before your passion, assuring you raised Lazarus from the dead, Christ God!” But without dwelling on this idea of ​​the bodily resurrection as an act of the omnipotence of God, the Holy Church leads us into the realm of a deeper mystery. It testifies that Coming to the free passion, our salvation, our Lord Jesus Christ is the CONQUER OF DEATH, not only bodily, but also spiritual, is the Firstborn of the dead, dying in the Lord. And therefore, in the joy of this great victory and in the hope of the divine promises given to us in Christ our Redeemer, with the symbols of this joy and this hope in our hands, we, like a rejoicing people who met the Lord at His entry into the holy city, on the eve of the great During Passion Week, we cry out from the depths of a grateful heart: “Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

“The general resurrection, before your passion, assuring you, raised Lazarus from the dead, Christ God. The same and we, like the youths of victory bearing the sign, to You, the Conqueror of death, we cry: Hosanna in the highest, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.

All Jerusalem was in motion, amazement, joy from what happened to Righteous Lazarus. The fourth day he was in the coffin, he had already begun to stink, decompose, and, being embalmed, he was able to get out of the cave in which he was laid. And we watched with fear as the Lord performed this resurrection: "Lazarus, come out."

Nothing can be disobedient to the word of the Master. And even the dead come out of the tombs, and the Lord can whiten even an impure life. Everything is subject to Him. But not subject to Him, according to His own will, according to His own desire, not subject to Him, only human will remains, only our desire, the direction of our will remains not subject to Him.

And we wonder how the people who saw this resurrection, an obvious miracle, which cannot be compared with anything else, how they could still make up some kind of advice against the Lord, the Ruler of the world. What could happen in their souls, in their hearts such that they did not submit to God? Sometimes it even seems that this is some kind of hypertrophied narrative, that in fact this cannot be. If people see a miracle, they will be saved, they will turn to God.

But, my dears, we can make sure from our own experience that this is far from being the case. Miracles in our lives - there were countless of them, just to remember, so the memory is short. And there were many such incidents.

From the Gospel story, we remember how a man who lay at the pool of Siloam for forty years, waiting for healing. Remember, there's the first person to get into the disturbance of the water, healed of whatever disease he was possessed with. This man lay for forty years. The Lord healed him in an instant. Now, this man went and told the Jews Who healed him (it happened on Saturday), and Who told him to take a bed and go. According to legend church man, who hit Christ in the courtyard of the high priest with some kind of iron glove, brass knuckles, this man was the same healed and relaxed. How can this be?

In the early 2000s, there was such a note, a whole story about how parents, a priest and mother, took an adopted child from an orphanage into their family, raised him, gave him an education, raised him “on his feet”. And this father was building a temple, there was no iconostasis, and one benefactor gave him some a large sum money for the iconostasis. And you can imagine, having learned about this, this man who had already grown up, approached his father and said: “Give the money here.” “What money? They are in my account, I transferred them by bank transfer, they are in the bank, I don’t have them.” And this young man tied him up, began to beat, beat, put needles under his nails: “Give me money.” He says: “Well, there are none. What are you doing to me, son? "Come on, I know." In the end, he killed him. And he did not receive any of this money, unlike Judas, Judas also did not receive anything in the end. This man received only a term.

There are many such examples, only they may not be as bright as the Gospel tells or occur in our history. Such examples - they are made on a smaller scale. And we are blessed by God. After all, the man is relaxed, he didn’t just start walking, he was taken into the army, for his denunciation he was given a place in the protection of not some person there, for example, a priest, he was taken into the army. And here is such an amazing ingratitude. It happens to those people who, we understand, are cruel, hard-hearted.

And, you know, the Lord gives us the opportunity to soften our hearts through the ability to weep. He himself wept when he saw the Jews weeping, when he saw Martha and Mary in such a terrible grief. And as a human being, this is very clear to us.

The gospel story is very touching. The Lord gives us the opportunity to cry ourselves. After all, Lazarus died, because according to the law, which was given by God before the Creation of the world, the punishment for sin is death.

And we mourn, in the end, and our sinfulness. And those of us who do not know how to cry, cannot express their feelings and sorrows, they find themselves in a very deplorable state. A person who cannot cry out his grief before God, before people, this person is not even fully complete, a person who cannot cry is a robot. And the critics of Christianity in the first centuries, they accused Christianity of femininity, that Christianity makes civilization, suits it with a "feminine face." Martha and Mary wept over Lazarus, the Jews wept, and Christ also wept. And when a person does not have the opportunity to express his feelings, he suffers very, very much.

Here we take care of our wards. Some of them can express themselves somehow, some cannot. And those who are deprived of such an opportunity are in some kind of capsule. And from the diaries of autistic people, who slowly began to return to life, they were able to express their experience and remember, from these diaries we see how they suffer. The most important suffering of a person who is imprisoned as if in some kind of shackles in a prison is that he cannot somehow turn to the people around him, and his expression of his inner state is inadequate, and people do not understand him. When we cry, we feel better. The Lord gave us this relief. Because the fact that tears flow from our eyes indicates our weakness, our inability to do anything. All that's left is to cry. When a person cries, he knows the measure of his strength, a person sees himself in such a state, helpless, but there is nothing left to do but turn to God. Even if he does not consciously turn to God at this moment, all the same, relief comes from humility.

And imagine how hard it was for Christ that He wept, “became troubled in spirit” and “strengthened,” as it is said in the Gospel, that is, holding back these sobs in Himself, he approached the tomb. How does Christ feel about our iniquities that lead us to the grave? But, he does nothing, does not undertake anything in order to turn us into robots. He leaves the choice to us. And it’s up to us to decide whether to be with Christ, with these youths who are “banners of victory”, that is, they brought palm branches with exclamations to Christ, or remain more or less tough, you know, so rational, Satan is very cunning, of course, he is to blame for the fact that the Jews crucified Christ, but if they had not been inclined to this through hostility, if they had not been inclined to this through envy, then Satan could not have done anything with them.

It is the same with our destiny. The Lord has shown us many miracles, but we remain as we are, uncorrected. Pride sometimes slips through us, vanity slips through us: here I am, well done, I did something there, and Satan gradually takes power over us.

Dear ones, let's stay awake. We rejoice that Christ raised Lazarus. In the same way, this paralyzed man rejoiced, jumped up to the ceiling, probably when he realized that he had been lying in bed for forty years, and that they were even taking him into the army. What happened next? He rejoiced, and the fruits of this joy all turned against him.

My dears, let's try these last days, our 40-day fast has already ended, and you and I should already come to Holy Week, enter it. And looking back at ourselves, at these fruits, we cannot but be horrified, of course. And we do it right. Because “God opposes the proud, gives grace to the humble,” gives grace not to crucify Him with sins. Amen.

Save me, God!

Metropolitan of Tashkent and Central Asia Vladimir. Sermon on Lazarus Saturday

WORD
on Lazarus Saturday

The common resurrection, before your passion, assuring, from the dead raised the ecu of Lazarus, Christ God.

From the troparion to the resurrection of Lazarus

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!

Beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord!

Death and joy - what an incomprehensible neighborhood for the earthly mind! Death appears to us as a scarecrow, a monster that threatens us and kidnaps our loved ones. We are accustomed to mourn the relatives of the dead, indulge in grief over their graves. But this is what the Savior says about the death of His friend, whom He loved with His infinite love: Lazarus is dead; and I rejoice for you... that you may believe(John 11:14-5).

Righteous Lazarus was undoubtedly a man of high soul and pure heart. How could it be otherwise if he became a friend of the Lord? The house of Lazarus, located in the village of Bethany, was one of the few havens in which the Son of Man found joy and rest, so rare in His earthly wanderings. This house breathed hospitality and cordiality, warmed by the soft warmth of a family hearth. Lazarus lived with his two sisters, and both of them were also dear to the heart of Jesus Christ. The first, caring Martha, tried with all her might to please, to create comfort for the Divine Guest who visited them. Second, meek Mary, chose the good part(Luke 10:42) - she caught every word that came from the lips of the Savior, opened herself with her whole soul towards the Teaching of Divine love. Lazarus himself, referring to him to Jesus Christ, was called simply: the one who do you love(John 11:3).

And so, this kind and generous house was visited by trouble. Lazar was seriously ill. The illness was so cruel that one could fear for the life of the patient - but neither he nor the sisters were afraid: after all, they had such a Friend with whom nothing was scary. The miracles of healing performed by the Divine Savior began to seem to them something ordinary and everyday. It was enough to resort to His help, and Lazarus would recover. With such confidence, Martha sent a messenger to tell Jesus Christ: God! that's who you love, sick(John 11:3) - without any requests, without doubting that the Savior would heal His friend. And this confidence of the Lazarus family was even more confirmed given by the Lord answer: this disease is not unto death, but to the glory of God, may the Son of God be glorified through it (Jn. 11,4).

However, Lazar was getting worse and worse, and grace-filled help did not come. And now the patient's body shuddered for the last time and began to freeze. The sisters did not want to, could not believe it - but cruel evidence testified: the heart did not beat, the lips did not breathe - their beloved brother had died. The quiet dwelling of Lazarus resounded with sobs. The great sorrow of Martha and Mary was mixed with the thought that pierced their souls: “Why did Jesus Christ, who healed strangers and random people he met, allow His friend to die?

But the Savior, who usually hurried to the call of all who needed His help, this time hesitated, was delayed for two days. He and his disciples are away from Bethany, where Lazarus was dying. And at the moment when the friend of God breathed his last, the Lord said to the Apostles: Lazarus, our friend, fell asleep(John 11, 11).

The students rejoiced. They also loved kind Lazarus very much and, judging by the earthly, they decided that the sleep of the sick often precedes recovery. God! if he falls asleep, he will recover(Jn. II, 12) - they shared this pleasant thought with the Teacher. But the answer of the Savior, which exceeded earthly understanding, stunned them. Lazarus is dead said the Son of God, and I rejoice for you that I was not there, that you might believe; but let's go to him(John 11:14-15).

Hearing this, the Apostles were at a loss, not knowing what to do: whether to grieve for a dead friend or rejoice at some incomprehensible joy proclaimed by Jesus Christ. And one of them, the loving but unbelieving Foma, exclaimed in a fit of grief: let's go and we will die with it(John 11, 16). The Savior did not answer, He turned and silently walked along the road leading to Bethany.

The disciples, overwhelmed by vague feelings, wandered after the Lord. They went on like this for four days. Meanwhile, in Bethany, a mournful funeral ceremony was performed, and Lazarus' sister, tormented by the acute pain of loss, no longer expected any miracles. When Jesus Christ finally stepped on the threshold of the house of His dead friend, Martha turned to Him with a quiet reproach: God! if you were here, my brother would not die(John 11:21).

Your brother will rise(John 11:23), the Lord answered. To the grief-stricken woman, these words seemed to be a common consolation for a believer, a promise of an afterlife meeting with her beloved brother, which softened her current grief. I know that he will rise on Sunday, on the last day(John 11:24), Martha answered. She called the Son of Man the Lord, but her faith was still not enough to understand: the Almighty Lord is able to easily return her dead brother to earthly life.

Martha knew that Jesus Christ is the greatest Healer, but with her earthly mind she still did not understand that before her was the Almighty, Who might not wait for the Day of Judgment to perform the resurrection of the dead. And the Son of God, breaking her lack of faith, directly told her about this: I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live. And whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? (Jn. 11, 25-26).

Resurrection of the dead? It was unseen, unheard of, incomprehensible. “He who is dead will not rise,” the whole earthly life, the entire material world, it was "an immutable law of nature." But in the words of the Teacher there was a force that rejected any “laws of nature,” and Martha's heart responded to the promise of the Savior with a flash of joyful hope, faith in an incredible miracle. I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, coming into the world(John 11, 27), - Martha confessed, and grief receded from her.

As if on the wings of an incomprehensible hope, Martha hurried to her sister with the news of the coming of the Savior. However, she still did not dare to tell Mary about the impending miracle of miracles, and she went out to meet the Lord, still in tears of lasting sorrow.

Meanwhile, Jesus Christ was heading to the tomb, where they laid the body of His friend Lazarus. Many people came in those days to honor the memory of Lazar - he was known for his kindness, famous for his pious life. Many shed sincere bitter tears over the grave of their friend and benefactor. Some Pharisees also came here. For these, the death of Lazarus was an occasion to show off: wiping dry eyes, admiring their own eloquence, they spread about the merits of the deceased, "led" at the wake. But those who were hypocritical even next to death, nevertheless, there were few at the tomb of the righteous - the grief of the majority was unfeigned.

The Savior approached this crowd of mourners and mourners. He saw sad faces, heard sobs, and rushed to Him, shedding tears, meek and loving Mary... At the sight of the common grief, Jesus Christ shed a tear. He knew that in a few moments Lazarus would come out to them alive and unharmed. But the Loving Savior with all his heart sympathized with the temporary grief of these good people, and the mortal horror that the righteous Lazarus had to experience before his death. Yes, the Son of God sent His friend Lazarus to this feat - so that the Almighty of God would be glorified. But the All-seeing Savior Himself suffered, together with His friend, his mortal pain and mortal agony.

The Lord paid tribute to human grief with His Most Luminous tears at the tomb of righteous Lazarus. The moment has come for the manifestation of the power of God. Take away the stone(John 11:39), the Lord commanded. Hearing this, the Pharisees murmured: “Bladiction! disrespect for the ashes!” - but the rest did not dare to disobey the Miracle Worker from Nazareth and began to remove the heavy stone from the tomb cave. He breathed a terrible smell of decay, the smell of death. Here Martha again succumbed to crafty doubt: God! already stinks; for four days he has been in the tomb(John 11:39). And again the Son of God humbled her unbelief: Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?(John 11:40).

And over the bewildered, bewildered crowd of mourners, the prayer of the Son of God, filled with unearthly majesty, burst forth: Father! thank you that you heard me. I knew that You would always hear Me; but I said this for the people standing here, that they might believe that you sent me(John 11:41-42).

This prayer sounded even before the miracle of the resurrection. The Divine Son thanked the Heavenly Father in advance, knowing that, according to His word, the dead would easily and simply be resurrected, for where is the limit to the Omnipotence of the Creator, who called the entire universe into being with a single word? And so, in simple everyday words, the Son of God commanded: Lazarus! get out(John 11:43).

An indescribable horror seized the people when Lazarus emerged from the tomb, wrapped in funeral shrouds. People shied away in different directions, giving way to the resurrected dead man - it seemed to many that they were seeing a ghost. But no: it was a living man, a living Lazarus, with the same kind and bright face, from which at that moment the expression of suffering gradually disappeared. Gradually, people began to recover from fear - they approached Lazarus, touched him, spoke to him, heard his embarrassed answers - and, finally, were convinced of the accomplishment of an incredible miracle. Then instead of sorrow came jubilation, the eyes of all turned to the Savior, and, many who saw what Jesus did believed in him(John 11:45).

The miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus took place when the world had not yet been redeemed by the Most Pure Blood of the Savior, and was still lying in the darkness of the Old Testament "Sabbath". But on the Saturday of the resurrection of Lazarus, the gloomy kingdom of Satan was already shuddering, beginning to lose its captives, foreseeing its defeat. St. John Chrysostom says: “Hell, having returned the deceased from the underworld, began to cry out: “Who is it with His voice that calls the dead from the tomb, as if sleeping? I see that the power of my dominion over the earthly is slipping out of my hands. Yes, the end of the power of the devil over the human race was approaching - from the day of the resurrection of Lazarus, it was not long before the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Resurrecting the dead, the Savior immutably showed people His divinity, preparing them to perceive the miracle of His Resurrection. Alas! human lack of faith, earthly reasoning resisted even the most glorious miracles of the Lord. Even the chosen Apostles failed to understand that Jesus Christ, having resurrected His friend, is able to resurrect Himself. Their weak-hearted apostasy tormented the Savior at the terrible hour of the Cross, and it took the fullness of the goodness of the Holy Spirit to turn weak, unbelieving disciples into courageous, unwavering evangelizers.

But on the day of the resurrection of Lazarus, there were no doubters yet. The jubilant crowd greeted the Savior and the righteous man resurrected by Him, and only a few people shunned joy, hatching black plans. Even this miracle did not force the Pharisees to worship the Son of God, but only increased their envious malice. Did these hypocrites, having learned that the Savior raises the dead, did not understand that they were opposed not to an ordinary person, but to God Himself? And yet, in the corridors of the Sanhedrin, the hiss of intruders was heard: what should we do? This man does wonders(John 11:47). And these fools encroached not only on the Savior Himself, but plotted the murder of the resurrected Lazarus, the “dangerous witness” of the miracles of the Son of God. Jesus Christ saved His friend who had returned to life from their deceit, He gave Himself alone to be torn to pieces by human malice.

Righteous Lazarus was raised from the tomb by the miracle of the Savior only for a temporary life, he had to go through his earthly path and die again. However, allowing the first untimely death of His friend, the Son of God thus rendered him a great blessing. Church tradition knows examples of how zealous in deeds of piety those who returned to earthly life from beyond the threshold of death became zealous. Such people saw in reality the horrors of the underworld, saw the blissful Kingdom of Light - and the memory of another world made them insensitive to the temptations of this world, tireless in the service of the Merciful Lord. Death and resurrection bestowed this spiritual fortress on Lazarus - being righteous and until his first death, all the long years of the earthly period remaining to him, Saint Lazarus performed feats of piety, acquiring ever greater glory in the Kingdom of Heaven.

The friend of the Lord, the righteous Lazarus, lived thirty years after his resurrection. He was the Bishop of China (Cyprus), an educator, a good shepherd of a large Christian community. The imperishable relics of St. Lazarus were found in Kitia in a marble reliquary with the inscription: "Lazarus of the Four Days, friend of Christ."

And that tomb cave in Bethany, where the Son of God prayed for the resurrection of Lazarus, became a temple. The tomb, the abode of sorrow and hopelessness, at the behest of the Conqueror of death, turned into a shrine, giving the hope of blissful eternity. In the resurrection of righteous Lazarus, the general resurrection of all the sons and daughters of the human race is foreshadowed, when the righteous friends of God rejoice in the Kingdom of Light given by the Savior.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ!

As the Lord once stood at the tomb of the deceased Lazarus, so now He stands at the stones with which our souls dying in sins are littered. The smell of decay emanating from a decomposing dead body seems unbearable to us, but much more terrible is the stench emanating from a soul stinking with sins. But the Most Pure Savior in His humble goodness endures this stench. Lazarus, get out! (In. 11:43), called the Son of God, and the righteous dead man immediately obeyed. May we, finally, hear the call of the All-Merciful Lord, who wants to lead us out of darkness to light - let us rise from spiritual death, into which our impurity, impenitence, and carelessness plunge us. Thus, having left the fetid cave of passions and lusts, having unleashed the coffin shroud of sins on ourselves with repentant tears, we will be able, following the righteous Lazarus, to join the great family of God's friends.

It is not death itself that is terrible - that inevitable inevitable hour is terrible when we all rise again in order to stand before the Court of the All-Seeing Lord. Blessed is he who in this life will be able to gain spiritual resurrection, to say with the Apostle: for me life is Christ, and death- acquisition(Philippians 1:21). Amen.

All of you, dear brothers and sisters, Happy Lazarus Saturday! Today we honor Saint Lazarus of the Four Days. But more, of course, we honor the event that is directly related to it, about which we read in the Gospel of John (John 11, 1-45), which says that almost on the eve of His Suffering on the Cross, the Savior, having come to Bethany, resurrected the dead who had been in the tomb for four days.

The event is very simply stated by the Evangelist John. And in it we receive a revelation that it is absolutely no problem for our Lord Jesus Christ to raise the dead. Furthermore, Holy Bible stipulates that the Lord, being with the disciples far from Bethany, deliberately waits for the time for Lazarus the Four Days to die, while still ill. And only after he dies, after he is buried, the Lord goes with his disciples to Bethany, practically already to Jerusalem, in order to resurrect Lazarus.

The words of Christ: “Our friend Lazarus succeed” (see: John 11, 11) testify that it is just as easy for God to raise the dead as it is to wake the sleeping one. And the disciples don’t even understand: when they hear that the Lord said to them: “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep,” they rejoice and say: “Well, if you fell asleep, then to recovery” (see: John 11, 12). And only after the Savior realized that the disciples did not understand that Lazarus had died, He already openly said to them: “Our friend Lazarus is dead” (see: John 11, 14).

The disciples of Christ, in spite of all their biased attitude towards that Kingdom of the Messiah, which they dreamed of, perfectly understand that Christ in Jerusalem and in Bethany is already in premature danger. And Thomas, the apostle, says: “Very well, let us also go with Him and die there together” (see John 11:16).

This, of course, indicates that not everything was so flatly understood by the apostles. They already realized that Christ must enter Jerusalem in order to die. And in this sense, the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus very clearly answers each of us the question of how the apostles answered, why else does Christ perform this miracle. In the troparion of this holiday, we read: “Common Resurrection, before your passion, assuring you, raised Lazarus from the dead, Christ God.” That is, in this case this resurrection of Lazarus testified to the extraordinary, extraordinary strength Jesus Christ, power as God. About the fact that if He has the ability to easily raise a four-day dead man, such a dead man, about whom his own sister testified that he was four days old and already stinks, then it means that God will have the strength and ability to resurrect Himself - no matter how weird, not even crazy.

Indeed, a great miracle is taking place. A miracle that is unlikely to ever be repeated by anyone, because the corpse has already begun to decompose. This means that all the physiological processes that took place in a person were completely disturbed, atrophied; they have already disappeared. The man began to smolder. What should be the Divine stream of grace that entered this dead man, if he did not just resurrect, came to his senses and remained lying on his bed, let's say - no! — and when the Divine power carried this dead man, bound by hand and foot, into an open cave with a rolled stone! It was impossible for him to go out like an ordinary person, because the binding was so strong and so saturated with balsamic resinous substances that it was not possible for a man with his hands tied to untie himself. In this case, all this testified to the extraordinary power of the Resurrected this dead man.

And for each of us, this is also an assurance that someday the Lord, by His Divine power, will find an opportunity, without consulting with our mind or with the mind of scientists, biologists and chemists who talk about stopping some biological processes, will be able to resurrect each of us. and put before you. And the Divine power, no matter where, how, when we are, will recreate the nature again, unite it with the spirit and soul and place it before the Lord.

About why the Lord performs this miracle of resurrection, says another very interesting fact. This gospel, biblical scholars say, contains the shortest verse, that is, the shortest numbered sentence, that is found in the entire New Testament. These are two words: Weep Jesus(John 11:35). That is, the God-man wept on the tomb of Lazarus.

"Why?" many researchers and interpreters ask. To say that He felt sorry for Lazarus due to the fact that death reaped him as its own fruit? Probably shouldn't say that. Already at the dawn of Christianity, the Apostle Paul, addressing the believers, said the following words: Brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant of the dead, but do not grieve, like others who do not have hope(1 Thess. 4, 13; see also "Following the funeral of the laity"). Then we must admit that Christ, like no one else - like the one who has hope - could not grieve over this. Why did he cry? Of course, for love.

Scripture says that He loved Lazarus, He loved Martha and Mary. As a human being, He was attached to them, and they were attached to Him. And the Lord wept for the reason that He was very clearly aware that humanity is so entangled in bonds, the web of eternal death, that it is not possible for humanity to break this web, these bonds on its own. Your own strength will not be enough! And the way a person dies not from physical death, but from eternal death - that's what horrified Christ!

The very fact of the Incarnation testifies to us precisely that out of love, out of mercy for man, Christ comes to the human race in order to deliver it from the bonds of eternal death. But what a wonderful thing Christ does! After all, He is not only a man, He is also God. He could be a blessing - from heaven! - over all mankind to save everyone from eternal suffering and torment. Or He, not only the Almighty, but also the Omnipresent, realizing that not only the Jewish people suffer from eternal death; there are, perhaps, much worse centers where humanity exists (after all, it was God's chosen people after all), could come and incarnate somewhere in another people. Or, at least, having been incarnated (hypothetically, we admit this), He could have done this: preach to the Jews, then go to the Gentiles and teach them how to act and what to do. But no, the Lord doesn't do that! He labored in a little-known people at that time for the universe, for the Roman Empire. In an unknown people.

He sheds His Most Pure Blood, and, of course, we can confidently say that at that moment, few people in the universe knew about this event. This means that the God-man has and had the greatest faith that His cause will not perish or perish. “Of course, how could it be otherwise?” we say. But behind this opens another very important point. The God-man, our Lord Jesus Christ, has great faith in us. He believes that we will accept His word, that we will respond with our hearts to His feat accomplished for each of us, and we will follow the path that He prescribed for us and for our salvation. That is, it turns out that if not every person believes in God and wants to believe in Him, then God, on the contrary, believes in every person and hopes - and therefore He does what He did.

And today, when we see, when we experience it as a spiritual reality; when, probably, the heart of every believer rejoices from the realization of what has been done, as evidenced in this miracle, we, of course, thank the Lord for the fact that He gives each of us the opportunity to join those most important, most important - spiritual - experiences .

“The common resurrection, before His passion, assuring ...” He assures today, He assured many of us that it will be, that we will not go anywhere, and the Lord, with His strength, His omnipotence and love, regardless of when we die, after how long will the general resurrection, [raise us up from death], we will be put on this judgment. And this means that there is something to strive for; there is something to think about; there is a way to be saved.

We wish all of us that these bright moments that today's worship gives us, when we honor Lazarus the Four Days, when we talk about his resurrection by our Lord, go as deep as possible into our minds and hearts, enlightening them and inspiring us to the true, not lazy, and, most importantly, on the unhypocritical fulfillment of the commandments of God. Amen.

A sermon delivered in the templeicons Mother of God
« Unexpected Joy» in Maryina Roshcha
on Saturday of the 6th week, vaiy.
(Lazarus Saturday. Resurrection of the righteous Lazarus).